15.3 WH- questions

English Notes

BSL Video

WH- questionsW-H- questions have a much wider range of possibilities for an answer than Yes or No. WH questions in English include words like What, Where, When, Why, Who and Which. BSL also has these words but they are used in a different way, with specific relationships. For example, WHERE=LOCATION? WHEN=TIME?, WHO=PERSON?, WHY=REASON? and WHICH=EITHER? We have already seen that WHAT is also a general marker for questions in BSL. The same marker WHAT can also occur at the end of a question even if the question was not a “what?” question e.g. YOU LIVE WHERE WHAT? There are also some single signs that are complete questions, for example the question HOW-OLD (AGE)? is one sign, or HOW-MUCH (MONEY)? and HOW-MANY? There are no one-word equivalents for these questions in English.

BSL also uses non-manual features (NMFs) such as the brows raised or furrowed and appropriate head and body movements.